Sermon for the 1st Sunday after Easter, 2020

I’ve been introducing my boys to the Indiana Jones movies. We’ve not yet watched The Holy Grail. I love that scene in that movie, where the man has to choose the real Holy Grail out of a dozen or so chalices. Some of them are silver, others studded with gems, some gleaming gold. The man doesn’t even notice the old clay cup among the rest. He was so convinced that God would use something glorious to show His glory, that He discounted that which truly held the power of God. He chose the most beautiful cup, and died a horrible death. I saw it as a boy and I still remember seeing Him age hundreds of years in a matter of seconds, and just disintegrate into the ground. He missed God among the gold! He should have known what Paul says, “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” He should have thought what James said, “God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him.” He listened to the witness of the world and not the witness of God.

Discounting the witnesses of God was not invented in the Indiana Jones movies. We find it even in the Resurrection stories. The three Mary’s were at the tomb when they learned of the resurrection. According to Luke’s gospel, they ran back to tell the other disciples, but the disciples did not believe the women. Normally the witness of three men would have substantiated a claim, even a capital punishment, in a court of law, but the testimony of women was not considered reliable. The disciples looked passed the witnesses of God, and stayed in unbelief.

Our Epistle this morning is from 1 John 5, where St. John says, “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” Yet the witness of men often seeks out the most impressive people to testify, the most educated people to corroborate, the fanciest suit and the whitest teeth to persuade the jury. God chooses the clay cup, the three women, and the crucified peasant. Why does God make hide himself under humble witnesses? St. John says in verse 4 that it is our faith which overcomes the World. Faith. If this is true, don’t you see why God does not make Himself obvious? He hides himself within the simple and lowly things so that only those who look hard with the eyes of faith will be able to find that which is hidden from the world. And to them He says, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.” And, “Blessed is he who is not offended because of me.”

Let’s walk through 1 John 5, verses 4-12. St. John says that whoever is born of God overcomes the world, and the victory that overcomes the world is our faith. In verse 5, he clarifies that this faith that overcomes the world is belief that Jesus is the Son of god. As St. John often does, he ties together three things in one: faith, being born in God, and overcoming the world. They go together in a necessary and logical order. Faith in Jesus leads to being born in God which leads to overcoming the world.

The next few verses start a rather confusing section. “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood.” This is referring to the Baptism of Jesus and the Death of Jesus. “And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood—and these three agree in one.” We will unpack these a little more, but first notice their relationship to what came before. God has given us a threefold witness that Jesus is the divine son of God. This witness is meant to confirm that faith by which we are born of God and overcome the world. In fact, the three witnesses (the water, the blood, and the Spirit) are so convincing to St. John that anyone that does not believe the witnesses to the truth has made God out to be a liar. But whoever believes has the witness in them.

So what are the witnesses and how are they in us? The water is Jesus’ baptism. The blood is Jesus’ death. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit which Jesus gives the disciples in our Gospel today: John 20. All of these witness that Jesus was truly the Son of God. Wasn’t this said at Jesus’ baptism?: “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.” What was said at His crucifixion? “Surely this man was the Son of God.” And when He breathed on His disciples, He says Himself that He sends them just as His Father sent Him. St. John is claiming that these three acts of Jesus in the Incarnation serve as the three witnesses that confirm a matter in a court of law. He reasons that our Faith should be sure.

But he also says that this witness is in those who believe. In this, he is speaking of the sacraments. The water is Baptism, which is the sacramental continuation of Jesus’ baptism. The blood is the Eucharist, which is the sacramental continuation of Jesus’ death. The Spirit is Ordination, which is the sacramental continuation of Jesus breathing on His disciples. St. John is affirming that the Sacraments recall the Incarnation of Jesus, but also continue that witness in the Church and actually place the power of the Incarnation in us.

This week is the First Sunday After Easter. You might ask what does this have to do with the resurrection? After Jesus was resurrected, there was a transition or a shift. Now, our interaction with Jesus is through the Spirit. This is the way that He continues the power of His Incarnation. We are not to continue holding Him as if He was still on the same mission as before He died. We see this in the story of Mary at the tomb. She wanted to touch her Savior, as all His disciples had done in His life. But He says, “Touch me not.” We see in the Resurrection ministry of Jesus an intentional transitioning to a different phase of witness: a resurrection witness based on the Sacraments. The witness of God is no longer based on touching Jesus in His earthly life, since it was part of the plan that He ascend into heaven. We have a witness that clings by Faith to His presence through the Spirit in the Body of Christ, the Church. We no longer have a witness that relies on seeing the Dove that descended on Jesus in His baptism, but we trust a witness that sees by Faith that same Spirit who regenerates every new believer in the sacrament of Baptism. The resurrection witness is no longer based on hearing Jesus preach on the green hills of Galilee. The resurrection witness hears the words of Jesus, by Faith, in the preaching and ordained ministry of the Church, and the Scriptures written by the Apostles, both by the power of the Spirit. We are now living in this resurrection witness that John speaks of, and Jesus has continued the power of the Incarnation in the ministry and sacraments of the Church.

And herein lies the difficulty. The sacraments are unimpressive witnesses in the world’s eyes. The world only sees a bath, a wafer, and a hand on the head. Yet St. John says that the witness of water, blood, and Spirit is greater than the witness of men. Just like the clay cup was greater than the golden chalice, so too the witness of God in His Church is hidden under the humble and unimpressive forms of Bread and Wine and Water and Hands. This is so that we might receive this witness in Faith, and thereby overcome the world!

But what does it mean to overcome the world? The world, in John’s writings, is a malignant and malevolent reality that seeks to draw away our love for God and turn it towards itself. There is so much in the world that desires our attention and affection. The world has a plethora of doors and gates to enter into its temple. It is the wide path. Many find it. And the signs on all the doors say, “Love this, watch that, fear this, hate that, riot for this, accept that.” There is no particular thing that the world wants you to believe. There is no solid platform that it represents. Its only desire is to gain your allegiance and your worship, and it will use every opportunity to do so. The Coronavirus pits us against physical death more than us against spiritual death. Political turmoil pits left against right more than the spiritual battle between the soul and world. The economy pits our fears against poverty more than us against a bankruptcy of virtue. The Red Carpet directs our hopes and adoration toward the fame of this world more than the glory and worship of the eternal God. But those who overcome the world will not be tricked by these things. All the trinkets and toys lure our attention more than the simplicity of God’s abiding presence. Beauty as the world sees it leads millions to the perfection of their bodies and faces more than the perfection of their souls. And the world has its witnesses! The talking heads from both sides of the isle are witnesses. The experts, alarmists, and rioters are witnesses, Wall Street, too, and Hollywood and malls and every advertisement that we hear or see. These witnesses beckon us to place our faith in the World. But whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ overcometh the world, and His witness is three: water, blood, and Spirit, and these three agree in One and are in you. They call and beckon us into a life unrecognizable by the world, but they are not as loud as the world. The witness of Jesus in the sacraments possesses a beauty that the world cannot fathom, but Jesus is so modest. He hides himself until it finds its home in the intimacy of faith in the human heart. The witness of the world seems to make so much sense, sometimes it seems only logical to become engulfed in its cares and messes. But the witness of God in water, blood, and Spirit turn the wisdom of the world to foolishness. We live by different logic, because we trust in a different witness.

Do you believe the witness of God? For those that do, then the power of that witness: the water, the blood, and the Spirit, reside in them. In that power, they will overcome the world. Do you have Faith? Faith is seeing what the world cannot see, and even when we can’t see anything at all, to trust in God that things are as He says they are. Faith is choosing peace over anxiety, love over fear, holiness over pleasure, heavenly glory over earth fame. Faith follows a hidden Jesus into poverty, risk, and death believing that He knows the way to true Life. For those at Christ the King to whom I’ll bring the Communion later today, I bring you nothing impressive or obvious. To the world that seeks for proof, it is merely a wafer of bread. But by taking it, you affirm your Faith in Jesus hidden in that Bread and He hides in you, and gives you power to reject and contest the world that hides nothing and reveals everything. So, eat in Faith, live in Faith. Live not as the world lives, for by Faith you have overcome the world. Amen.